Mystery at beach: Is this your Japanese toy train?

Aug. 1, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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This chunk of toy train is a Shinkansen Komachi model of the Japanese bullet train. It's popular in Japan. When Ryan and Yuji Kaneko found the train on a beach they believed it was debris from the Japan that came over after the March 2011 earthquake. Oceanographers believe it's unlikely for debris from Japan to reach Orange County because of the offshore nature of the currents and winds in Southern California. Experts say ocean currents are more likelty to direct debris from Japan to shore from Oregon to Alaska. SAMANTHA MASUNAGA, FOR THE REGISTER

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Beverly Findlay-Kaneko, left, with Yuji Kaneko and their son, Ryan Kaneko, near the spot at Dog Beach in Huntington Beach where they found part of a toy train. SAMANTHA MASUNAGA, FOR THE REGISTER

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Beverly Findlay-Kaneko, left, with son Ryan Kaneko and husband Yuji Kaneko, believes its a quirk of fate that their family found a piece of a toy train that was made in Japan. The family lived in Japan until last year, when an earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster rocked the country. The family has relocated to Orange County. SAMANTHA MASUNAGA, FOR THE REGISTER

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Yuji Kaneko, right, spends months at a time in Japan, attending to the family business and helping to care for his parents. But his family's home now is Orange County. When he's not home, the family connects daily via Skype. SAMANTHA MASUNAGA, FOR THE REGISTER

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On his current trip to Japan Yuji Kaneko, right, plans to try to find the owner of the toy held here by son Ryan Kaneko. It's unclear if the toy train actually came directly from Japan, but a representative from the manufacturer has expressed interest in helping reunite train and owner. SAMANTHA MASUNAGA, FOR THE REGISTER

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Beverly Findlay-Kaneko holds a close-up photo of the toy bullet train that they think washed ashore in Southern California after traveling from Japan as part of the March 2011 Tsunami debris. STUART PALLEY, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Beverly Findlay-Kaneko and her son Ryan, 11, stand across the channel from where Ryan and his father found part of a toy bullet train. The Kaneko family believes its a quirk of fate that their family found a piece of a toy train that was made in Japan. The family lived in Japan until last year, when an earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster rocked the country. The family has relocated to Orange County. STUART PALLEY, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Ryan Kaneko, 11, stands across the channel from where he and his father found part of a toy bullet train at Dog Beach in Huntington Beach. STUART PALLEY, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Ryan Kaneko wrote this letter about the toy bullet train he and his father found at Dog Beach in Huntington Beach. COURTESY OF KANEKO FAMILY

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Beverly Findlay-Kaneko, son Ryan Kaneko and husband Yuji Kaneko believe its a quirk of fate that their family found a piece of a toy train that was made in Japan. The family lived in Japan until last year, when an earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster rocked the country. The family has relocated to Orange County. COURTESY OF KANEKO FAMILY

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The Kaneko family believes its a quirk of fate that their family found a piece of a toy train that was made in Japan. The family lived in Japan until last year, when an earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster rocked the country. The family has relocated to Orange County. COURTESY OF KANEKO FAMILY

This chunk of toy train is a Shinkansen Komachi model of the Japanese bullet train. It's popular in Japan. When Ryan and Yuji Kaneko found the train on a beach they believed it was debris from the Japan that came over after the March 2011 earthquake. Oceanographers believe it's unlikely for debris from Japan to reach Orange County because of the offshore nature of the currents and winds in Southern California. Experts say ocean currents are more likelty to direct debris from Japan to shore from Oregon to Alaska.SAMANTHA MASUNAGA, FOR THE REGISTER

HUNTINGTON BEACH– The father and son walked along the jetty – a favorite place to find crabs – until something caught the father's eye, something wedged between the rocks:

A toy train.

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About four inches in length, the train was filled with sand and pebbles. It was probably part of a larger set of toy railroad cars, a Shinkansen Komachi model of the Japanese bullet train.

The boy used to play with the same kind of toy train. What's more, the train and the boy had something in common. Both left their native Japan and ended up in Huntington Beach.

The boy came over with his family last year, after tsunami and earthquake had changed his native country.

And the train?

It started in Japan, but nobody can say for sure when or how it got to the rocks at Dog Beach in Huntington Beach.

"I was so shocked, I couldn't think anything. It was just weird," said the father, Yuji Kaneko, of finding a familiar toy – one sold only in Japan – on a beach thousands of miles from home.

"Then I realized it came through the ocean from Tohoku."

The Tohoku region is located in northeast Japan, and was the epicenter of the 8.9 earthquake and tsunami the struck in March of last year. If the train floated over from Tohoku, it would be the latest piece of Japanese debris to hit the West Coast. In recent months, everything from refrigerators and a truck to a chunk of a dock have washed up on beaches in Oregon and Washington.

So far, nothing has landed as far south as Orange County.

Still, the possibility of the toy train being part of that flotilla sparked the imagination of Yuji's son, Ryan, 11.

"I was wondering where (the toy's owner) was, if he was safe somewhere else, or still stuck in northwest Japan," Ryan said.

In a letter to the Register, Ryan said he hoped to find the toy's owner one day and return it.

Ryan's mother is no less inspired by the tiny chunk of train.

"If somebody else had found it ... they wouldn't have known what it was," said Beverly Findlay-Kaneko.

"Why is it that we found it? It's kind of strange."

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The Kanekos were changed by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

Pre-quake, they lived in Yokohama, about 200 miles from the quake's epicenter.

On the day of the quake, Ryan was at school, practicing spelling. He felt the tremor, which built in intensity, and soon followed the directions of an announcement that came through the school's PA system:

"Get under your desk. This is a real earthquake!"

Ryan and his classmates rode out waves of increasingly violent shakes.

Meanwhile, Beverly raced to the train station to get Ryan, but changed her strategy when a huge aftershock made her wonder if the train would get all the way to Ryan's school. She and Yuji decided to drive, avoiding all freeways along the way. It took them an hour to get to the school, where they found Ryan unhurt. It took six hours to drive home.

Five days later, the family left Japan for Huntington Beach.

Initially, they came to visit a sick relative; Beverly's mother, who lived in Orange County, was hospitalized. But the aftereffects of the quake came with them to the U.S. For weeks afterward, both Beverly and Ryan felt motion sickness.

Soon, their visit started to look more like a relocation.

"At first we told Ryan to finish fourth grade here, and then to finish the first half of fifth grade, and then all of fifth grade," Beverly said.

They read news reports of radioactive leaks from Fukushima's nuclear reactors – and the Japanese government's less-than-accurate updates about the dangers posed by those leaks. As a result, the family has become active in the fight against the use of nuclear power.

And, now, unlike the toy train, Ryan won't be going back to Japan any time soon.

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On Monday, Yuji flew back to Japan. It's his new normal, as he goes to Japan for long stretches to help run his family's business and to help care for his aging parents. He can Skype with Beverly and Ryan, but he can return to the United States only once every few months.

"It's a really hard situation, taking care of both sides, but I have no choice," Yuji said.

On this latest trip, Yuji took the toy train. He's planning meet with officials from the train's manufacturer and see if they can use the serial number on the train to get it back to its original owner.

But it's unclear if Japan is the place for that.

Jan Hafner, a scientific computer programmer at the University of Hawaii who has worked on models of the ocean voyages of tsunami debris, said that the winds and currents of the Pacific flow toward land from Alaska south to Oregon. In Southern California, the currents flow offshore.

That difference is why Japanese tsunami debris found, to date, hasn't landed as far south as Huntington Beach.

Hafner says it is "highly unlikely" that the train could have floated from Japan to Southern California.

Still, Yuji has the train in Japan, and Ryan is hoping his father can connect some dots.

"I really want to return this toy to its owner so that the owner can remember their memories."

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